West Central Bass League - Long Lake TOC

Thursday August 26th was the West Central Bass League Tournament of Champions. The top 10 teams in the year long point standings were invited to compete however one team had boat problems the night before and were unable to fish. With limited time we went down the list to try to fill the field but there were no takers so only 9 teams competing on Long Lake. My guess is that 8 of the teams wished they didn't have to fish either since it was brutal out on the lake. Of the 9 teams 6 failed to catch a single fish in the 3 hours of fishing. 2 other teams had 1 fish apiece and the winners reported getting 3 bites all night. They were a pretty amazing 3 bites though as you will see from the results.

1st - Ron & Joe 15.15 lbs

2nd - Ron & Dave 4.23 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike 3.01 lbs

Big Bass - Ron & Joe 5.54 lbs

Fortunately for us we were one of the teams who were actually able to catch a fish although it seems more like dumb luck than any type of skill. I never had a bite the entire evening. The bass my dad caught came about 20 minutes into the night while flipping reeds. It actually didn't even hit while in the reeds but after my dad had started reeling in to make another flip. About half way through the night I could tell that it was super tough out there and had the feeling that if we could catch just one more keeper it would be good enough for at least 2nd place. We bounced around to our best summer spots on the lake but were just never able to make anything happen. That is the way summer time fishing on Long can be most of the time though.

West Central Bass League - Norway Lake TOC

Wednesday August 25th was the West Central Bass League Tournament of Champions. The top 10 teams in the year long point standings were invited to fish. Each team then chose one of our league lakes and we drew the name of a lake to fish that night. Norway Lake was chosen. That got a few groans since the lake has been very tough this year but my dad and I were able to get a 1st and a 2nd there earlier in the year so we were happy with the choice. The lake ended up being stingy once again but my dad and I were able to finish off the Wednesday night season with another 2nd place. Here are the full results.

1st - Ron & Joe 9.07 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike 7.78 lbs

3rd - Tim & Grant 7.56 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Pete 3.62 lbs

As usual we started our night fishing deep structure on Games Lake. Our action started almost immediately and we had our 3 fish limit in the boat in about 15 minutes by throwing Rapala DT 14s. We then hopped around to several other locations but not much was happening in any of those spots. After that we went back to our starting area and worked it over with jigs and soft plastics and were able to catch a few more fish doing that. While we were able to upgrade a little bit at a time the quality fish just didn't seem to be there. With about 45 minutes left in the night we decided to head back to Norway Lake to fish shallow cover with the hopes of coming across one big bite. With about 15 minutes left in the evening I was able to catch our big fish from under a dock but it only ended up weighing 3 lbs. That fish still was just enough to bump us over the 3rd place finishers and into 2nd.

Big Bass Bonanza - Sauk Lake

The 5th and final event on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit was held August 22nd on Sauk Lake. The fishing was extremely tough for the 31 teams competing and even the teams who did well reported catching very few fish. In fact only 8 limits were brought to the scales and 7 teams weighed no fish. My dad and I ended up in the middle with 4 fish for 10.38 lbs. That put us in 17th place out of the 31 boats. This was just barely enough for us to hang on to a top 10 spot in the Team of the Year standings. We finished the TOY standings in 8th place with 193 points and the 10th place team finished with 190 points so there was very little cushion for us. With our top 10 finish we will be fishing the BBB TOC on Lake Koronis in a few weeks.

Going into this event we knew the fishing would be extremely difficult but I was still confident we could put our 8 fish limit in the boat. We practiced for one day and had 2 patterns going. The main pattern was fishing docks and trees but this is what everyone else does on Sauk too. Our other pattern involved fishing shallow weedlines which we felt would get a little less pressure. At the end of the day neither pattern ended up working well for us but we did get 2 of our weigh fish from the docks and trees and 2 of our fish from the weedlines. Besides a couple of short fish we only had one other bite the whole day. It ended up being the worst fishing I have experienced in 3 years on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit.

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake

Thursday August 19th was the final regular season night of the 2010 West Central Bass League season. We had 11 teams competing and as usual Eagle Lake kicked out some monster bags. What was unusual was the color of the fish for the winning team. For the first time that I can remember a team targeted smallmouth and brought in 3 brown fish to take the win. Big smallmouth have been weighed in the past but they were always just random fish. Here are the results.

1st - Grant & Travis 14.10 lbs

2nd - Joe & Pete 11.86 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals 10.85 lbs

Even though this was the final regular season night there is still one more night of league fishing this year. The top 10 in the points standings at the end of the year are invited to fish in the Tournament of Champions which will be held August 26th on Long Lake. The top 4 in the standings will receive payouts based on their point standing throughout the year as well. Here are the top 4 teams on Thursday nights for the 2010 season.

1st - Ron & Joe 238 points

2nd - Tim & Grant 234

3rd - Paul & Troy 228

4th - Andy & Mike Nitchals 225

Our fishing this night was actually quite slow but we kept plugging away and ended up weighing in a very nice bag. The only problem was the 2 bags ahead of us were giants! We caught our fish the usual Eagle Lake way by skipping docks and trees although I believe all of our fish came from under docks. 2 of our fish were just average size but a 4.5 lb bass that came about mid way through the night really bumped our weight up enough to get into the final money spot.

West Central Bass League - Diamond Lake

Wednesday August 18th was the final regular season night of the 2010 West Central Bass League season. We had 15 teams competing on what turned out to be a pretty good night of fishing on Diamond Lake. There were a lot of fish caught and the weights were very solid as well. Here are the results.

1st - David & Lenny 9.62 lbs

2nd - Kelly & Scott 9.46 lbs

3rd - Joe & Greg 9.40 lbs

4th - Dean & JD 9.26 lbs

Big Bass - Kelly & Scott 3.68 lbs

Even though this was the final regular season night there is still one more night of league fishing this year. The top 10 in the points standings at the end of the year are invited to fish in the Tournament of Champions which will be held August 25th on Norway Lake. The top 4 in the standings will receive payouts based on their point standing throughout the year as well. Here are the top 4 teams on Wednesday nights for the 2010 season.

1st - Ron & Joe 224 points

2nd - Paul & Pete 220

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals 215

4th - Kelly & Scott 192

My dad and I were only able to manage a 6th place finish on Diamond Lake with 3 fish for 7.88 lbs. We actually caught 30 or more bass in the 3 hours of fishing but we just didn't come across the quality fish that many other teams did. Most of our bites came by skipping tubes under the docks but I did add our best fish of the night on a Chigger Craw flipped in the reeds.

B.A.S.S. Northern Divisional - Bays de Noc

2010 marked my 2nd consecutive trip to the Northern Divisional after years of coming close but failing to qualify through the Minnesota TOC. Normally the Divisional rotates between the 8 states but for political reasons it returned to Bays de Noc for another year. On the one hand I was disappointed because I did terrible there last year and would have liked to compete on a new body of water but on the other hand last year gave me a lot of experience that hopefully would be useful to me this year. In the end I ended up doing quite a bit better than last year but still stunk it up. Over the course of the 3 day tournament I ended up weighing in 8 bass for 23 lbs 8 oz. This put me in 76th place out of 112 anglers. The 12 man Minnesota team did not fare much better as a whole. We finished in 6th place last year but this year we ended up dropping one spot to 7th.

My troubles started off right away in the morning on Day 1 when I remarked to my partner, "I have never had boat problems on a tournament day. I'm sure that just jinxed us." Right after I said that I checked the kill switch one last time and sure enough it didn't work. A wire had pulled free and there was no way to get it repaired as the blast off had started. Fortunately the Minnesota team had a spare boat in the water and ready to go. After a mad scramble to get our gear in the other boat we ended up blasting off only a couple minutes after the last boat had left. I was only able to grab a handful of rods and tackle though and also had none of my waypoints in the new boat. It was great to only lose a few minutes of time though as we started off on about a 25 mile run to my first spot. My first area was a large flat hump with various high rocky spots on it. I thought I would be able to get on my preferred areas even without my waypoints but the cloud cover really hindered my ability to see the high spots. I was able to catch my 1 fish of the day in this area on a green pumpkin tube. It ended up weighing 4 lbs 12 oz so it was a really nice fish but I just didn't get any more of them. After that we ran around to some of my other areas and my partners spots but nothing would work for me. He was getting quite a few bites dragging a tube just like I was but I just wasn't getting bit for some reason. I guess the whole boat ordeal was messing with my mind more than it should have but whatever the case the whole day was just a disaster.

Day 2 ended up being much better for me as I was able to weigh in a 5 fish limit for 13 lbs 13 oz. That is not a huge limit by any means but it felt good to just get 5 fish in the box. My partner for the day wanted to spend his time in the same area that I started on the day before. That suited me just fine since it was my best area as well. We were the first boat to arrive but it was really slow for most of the morning. I was able to pick up a fish here and there though as I moved around the rocky areas on the hump. In the morning dragging a tube and drop shot extremely slowly was working the best but as the sun came out around noon the spinnerbait bite picked up considerably. By the end of the day I had caught around 10 fish with most of them coming on a spinnerbait in the afternoon.

The forecast for day 3 was for strong south winds which on Bays de Noc is the one direction you don't want to see. Any strong winds make it tough out there since it is such a large body of water but there is nothing blocking a wind from the south. With that forecast in mind the tournament director decided to limit the fishing waters to Little Bay de Noc only for the day. This upset many competitors since all of the best areas were off limits for the day. Personally I do not like the call either. I feel that the day should have been cancelled or we should have been allowed to fish the entire lake. Regardless of our feelings though we had to make the best of it. Neither my partner nor I had much going in the waters we were allowed to fish so we just went fishing basically. I ended up catching one really early on a spinnerbait and then didn't have a bite the rest of the day until we came back to the weigh in site. I was able to catch one more keeper on a drop shot right outside the harbor as we bounced around in the 5-6 foot waves that were coming in at that point. My 2 fish for the day weighed in at 4 lbs 15 oz and I was able to get some more big water driving time in as well. I never felt comfortable in big waves like that but after doing it 2 years in a row now I feel like I have gotten the hang of it. It's still not my idea of a good time but at least I don't feel like I'm going to die!

Even though my performance in this tournament was not very good I still had a great time over the week. Our 12 man team worked well together even though it didn't really show in the final standings and they were a great group of guys to hang out with. I was almost sad when the week came to an end. In any case I'll be trying to make the 2011 Northern Divisional once again when we have our MN State TOC on Lake Minnetonka on September 9-10.

West Central Bass League - Lake Koronis

August 5th was the last league night I fished before leaving for the BASS Northern Divisional on Bays de Noc in Escanaba Michigan. We had one of our lowest turnouts of the year with only 10 boats showing up to compete. Koronis is not one of the more popular lakes on the league schedule so this is not too surprising though. My dad and I could only manage to find 3 little keepers for 4.87 lbs which put us in 7th place for the night. With only 10 boats we paid 3 spots instead of the usual 4.

1st - Paul & Troy 9.29 lbs

2nd - Ron & Joe 9.01 lbs

3rd - David & Lenny 8.32 lbs

Big Bass - Tim Stockland & Grant King 4.41 lbs

Our night was just a struggle to get anything going. From the results you can see that we never did find anything that worked for us. I guess I just want to forget this night because it's been a few weeks now and I really don't remember how we caught our fish. I believe we caught a few on soft plastics around the trees and docks. I also think we caught 1 weigh fish along a deep weedline on a jig. It doesn't really matter though since it was such a poor performance.

After this night I left for Michigan for 4 days of practice and the Northern Divisional which took place August 11-13 so I missed the league nights of August 11th on Green Lake and August 12th on Lake Calhoun. Since I did not fish those night I will not be reporting on them here. My next blog will detail my experience in Michigan for the Northern Divisional.

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake

Wednesday August 4th was our first visit to Eagle Lake for the West Central Bass League this year. The lake is known for kicking out some big fish and big bags in league nights past but it was nothing compared to this evening. Of the 18 teams fishing, 9 of them were able to bring in a 3 fish limit weighing over 9 pounds, with 4 of those bags topping 10 pounds. Here are the results.

1st - Paul & Pete 14.36 lbs

2nd - Grant King & Travis Lohre 12.22 lbs

3rd - Jeff & Jake 11.80 lbs

4th - Andy & Mike Nitchals 10.56 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Pete 5.14 lbs

Since I am pretty backlogged on these blogs after my trip to Michigan these next few league reports are going to be short and to the point. For this night on Eagle there is not a whole lot to report anyway. We fished the way we always do on Eagle which is to find a stretch of docks that doesn't have any boats on it and go to work picking them apart. This is how most of the fish are caught in the lake and all of our weigh fish came by skipping Strike King Bleeding Bait tubes under and around the docks.

West Central Bass League - Green Lake

Thursday July 29th was the first visit to Green Lake for league this year and it must have scared off most of the guys or something because only 9 teams showed up to fish despite the perfect weather conditions. I guess they are just intimidated by Green Lake! Maybe they were just the smart ones since the fishing was pretty difficult for the most part.

1st - Tim Stockland & Grant King 9.27 lbs

2nd - Paul & Troy 9.14 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike 7.36 lbs

Big Bass - Ross & Daryl 3.40 lbs

My dad and I were the beneficiaries of some bad fortune from our closest pursuers in the Team of the Year standings on this night. Their boat broke down about halfway through the night so they were unable to fish effectively for the full 3 hours and ended up finishing 4th for the night. I would have liked more of a cushion but at least we gained 1 point on them. At this point in the season we have a 2 point lead over 2nd place in the standings.

I hadn't been out on Green since our Big Bass Bonanza tournament several weeks ago so the plan was to fish the same patterns and hope they still worked and if not try to figure something out with the remaining time. For the most part those areas and patterns held up but the size was just a little bit smaller than it had been. It also hurt that I lost several nice bass that would have helped our weight a bunch. I don't think they would have been enough to win but you never know. We caught all of our weigh fish on tubes fished around milfoil, sand and rocks.

West Central Bass League - Lake Calhoun

Wednesday July 28th was the first visit to Calhoun for the West Central Bass League this year. The lake is known for producing tons of small fish but can also produce some very nice bags as well. On this particular night it was somewhere in between as all 19 teams competing were able to bring in a 3 fish limit. Even though it is only a 3 fish limit that is pretty rare. The weights at the top were also very tight but all in the 9 lb range which is not great for this lake.

1st - Paul & Pete 9.41 lbs

2nd - Travis & Tristan 9.37 lbs

3rd - Ron & Joe 9.27 lbs

4th - Ron & Dave 8.48 lbs

Big Bass - Troy & Chad 3.97 lbs

My dad and I were only able to manage an 8th place finish with 6.98 lbs. This continues our slide in the month of July. We are still holding on to the Team of the Year standings lead but the gap has closed to 4 points over Ron & Joe who are on fire right now. We will need to pick it up if we are going to hold them off the rest of the year.

Our fishing on Calhoun was about what I was expecting. We ended up catching a lot of fish but most of them were under 2 lbs. I think the 3 that we weighed in were the only 3 fish we caught that were over 2 lbs but as you can tell from the weight they were not much over 2 lbs. We ended up moving around quite a bit in search of an area with big fish but nothing ever materialized. Our 3 weigh fish did end up coming in 3 different types of areas as well. The first came on a tube under an overhanging tree. The second came on a Chigger Craw flipped into heavy milfoil near deeper water and the third one came on a jig flipped in the reeds. It ended up being a pretty fun night just catching a lot of fish in a variety of ways but we really needed a few bigger bites. Hopefully they will be coming in the next few weeks.